


Beware the Patient Woman

by missparker



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Season 1 Episode 10: The Witching Hour, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 00:53:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missparker/pseuds/missparker
Summary: Zelda forgot what it was like to have a newly baptized witch in the house.





	Beware the Patient Woman

**Author's Note:**

> guess i live here now ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ happy halloween

_Beware the patient woman, cause this much I know_  
_No one calls you honey when you're sitting on a throne_

**A Little Wicked - Valerie Broussard**

*

Zelda forgot what it was like to have a newly baptized witch in the house. How it changed things, how it changed people. It made the air around them feel luscious, made the garden burst into bloom even though the ground should've been frozen over by now. Milk spoiled in the ice box, the silverware in the drawer was tarnished despite Hilda having polished it not long ago. 

They all felt it too, prickling at their skin, making their blood rush, making their desires surge up to the surface. Ambrose, who had only recently regained some semblance of freedom, suddenly locked himself into the attic for long stretches. They could all hear the loud base of music through the floorboards and under that, the sound of him and his boyfriend fornicating. 

Hilda dealt with it by leaving. Taking extra shifts at that bookstore, leaving early and scuttling home late, her ruddy cheeks flushed and her hair slick with sweat from that terrible wig. Zelda often heard her come in, heard the shower come on in the poky little bathroom next to the spare room. 

Not spare anymore. Hilda had magicked her bed away and now the bedroom felt large and empty and not right. One nightstand, one bed, one lamp where there had always been two. 

But there could be two again, she thought, looking down into the bassinet at the sleeping baby. 

She would call a family meeting, they would agree that the child showed up at the Spellman Mortuary as an indiscretion of Ambrose’s. Sure, he preferred men, but after so many years on the planet, who _hadn’t_ sampled the other half? Now that Sabrina had signed the Book of the Beast, a bastard baby would surely be overlooked by the coven. They would raise her, hidden away, keep her out of sight of Father Blackwood and his heir until… well, until they couldn’t. 

Another sixteen years. She could do that. Just a handful of days, really, and no half-mortal side to stomp out, either. 

The babe slept easily, waking only to feed or to be changed and it was just as well, because every time Sabrina came near her, Zelda felt drunk with the power she was emitting. 

Sabrina was home now, summoned by Zelda herself to discuss the child and her future in the family.

Zelda had sweat through her dress, her girdle, her silk stockings and had to change before she could greet anyone downstairs. She stripped off the heavy, tailored material, freed herself of most of her undergarments and momentarily flopped down onto the bed, enjoying the feeling of air on her skin. She could see that her knees were red and her breasts and chest, too. Too hot, too hot. Even her panties were damp and she lifted her hips to get out of them. The gusset was soaked. 

It wasn’t Sabrina’s power that was making everything so difficult, exactly. Or, rather, not only her power. It was Sabrina’s virginity that was making them all so bothered. The two things together made her nearly irresistible, leaving trouble in a wake behind her. 

Zelda redressed, opting for a dress with a looser fit. A-line, boat neck. She used magic to refresh her hair - it wouldn’t last as long as doing it by hand, but long enough to get her through the end of the day. 

From the stairs, she could hear Hilda in the kitchen - a comforting sound. Ambrose’s music from upstairs was still blaring; she’d have to speak to him. There was a baby in the house again. She held the girl, swaddled tightly in a blanket and descended the stairs.

Hilda had gone to the shed and pulled out the old things - the wooden high chair carved from black oak and polished to a shine, the bassinet that was in her bedroom already, the crib still in pieces, a trunk of clothes. 

Sabrina entered the kitchen from the other direction and it was still a shock to see her. Her blonde hair had gone so pale, so fine that she barely looked like herself. Zelda had been born with mousy brown hair and it had gone strawberry not long after her own dark baptism. It was a somewhat rare reaction to power, but not unheard of. Possibly genetic. 

“Is that a baby?” Sabrina asked.

“Yes,” Zelda said. “Lady Blackwood delivered her twins. The girl came first. I thought I ought to save her before the High Priest slit her throat.”

“You stole a baby?” Sabrina asked, her voice rising an octave.

“I saved a life,” Zelda said. “Please go get your cousin. We need to decide how to proceed.” 

Sabrina crossed the kitchen, glancing at the baby as she passed. On the counter, a glass bottle cracked and olive oil started seeping out onto the counter. 

“Oh dear,” Hilda said, and rushed over with a rag to mop it up. 

“She’ll learn to control it,” Zelda said, sighing at the mess. “Eventually.”

oooo

Hilda should have been the stronger witch, really, of the two of them. And it was an unholy kindness on Zelda’s part to explain to Sabrina that Hilda had opted to keep her virginity intact to maximize her power instead of the truth which was that nobody had ever wanted to fuck her. Of course Hilda hadn’t thought so, had colored at the kitchen table and shot Zelda daggers with her eyes. 

Maybe her virginity did still maximize Hilda’s power but it was obvious to Zelda that there was still more holding her back than helping her out. 

They agreed, as a family, to keep the rightful heir a secret.

“Isn’t Prudence the rightful heir?” Sabrina had asked. “And isn’t this her sister?”

“Legitimate heirs always have a better time holding onto power,” Hilda had explained softly. 

“What really should happen is Prudence should raise this baby,” Sabrina had decided. Sabrina always thought she knew best and while signing the book had seemed to mellow her out considerably, Zelda recognized her tone, her shift in posture. She was ramping up to do what she thought was _good_ and _right_. A mortal trait she’d tried to ground out with her heel time and again to no avail. 

“Prudence isn’t even out of school yet, cous,” Ambrose had pointed out. 

“But she will be before too long. If I were Prudence, I’d take this baby and spend her whole life getting her ready for a coup,” Sabrina had said, clutching the table. “And then, reign together.” 

The old wooden table cracked under her hands and a vine crept up and out of the wreckage.

“Sorry,” she’d said. “I can’t quite…”

“Yes, we know,” Zelda had said. “And while I find your plans to overthrow our coven quite impressive, Ambrose is right. Prudence isn’t ready and this child is ours for now. So let’s think of a name, shall we?”

They named the baby Perdita. It was one of many options they discussed over dinner while the baby slept nearby, but one Zelda felt drawn to again and again. Finally Ambrose had said, “It’s Shakespearean. It means _lost_. Doesn’t that seem appropriate?”

Perdita had woken with a scream nearly the moment they decided which had sealed her fate. Hilda mixed up a concoction of nutrients and goat’s milk, the same thing they’d fed Sabrina until she was old enough to eat solids. Zelda got a strange sense of déjà vu as she held the baby who sucked greedily at her bottle. 

A sudden death, a baby as the result. Sabrina had been older, of course, when they’d gotten custody. Six-months-old, not straight from the womb. Zelda hadn’t thought Diana would make it through the pregnancy, let alone the birth. They’d been curious about how long gestation would last. Diana had made it just shy of a year before giving birth but had popped the baby out like she’d been bred for it. 

“Aunt Zee?” 

Sabrina hovered in the doorway to the parlor.

“Yes?”

She came in closer, stopped at the arm of the sofa in front of where Zelda sat with a bottle, the baby supported by a dusty taffeta pillow wedged under her elbow. 

“Now that I’ve signed the book, I think I’d like to spend more time at the Academy,” she said. 

Zelda felt a surge of triumph and then, on its heels, frustration. If only the stupid girl had signed the book at her baptism in the first place and saved them all a world of trouble. Zelda had tried and tried to explain to her niece that her doubts would evaporate the moment she gave herself over to their merciful Dark Lord but Sabrina had been stubborn.

Zelda pat the cushion next to her and Sabrina took the invitation and sat. 

“I’m quite proud of you,” she told her niece. “I know your father would be, too.” 

“I’m not saying I want to leave Baxter High for good,” Sabrina said, rolling her eyes at the praise. “But Miss Wardwell said that we could probably arrange to be fifty-fifty between them.”

“Did she, now,” Zelda said. “Perhaps we ought to invite Miss Wardwell over and have a chat about all of this.”

Sabrina nodded. “I can ask her.”

“See that you do.”

Sabrina stood and Zelda tensed for all the antiquities in the room, but nothing shattered. Instead, Sabrina was looking out the window. Zelda twisted but it was hard to see without upsetting Perdita. 

“There’s people out there,” Sabrina said. “Just… standing there.”

“Oh, that,” Zelda said. “They’re drawn to you.”

“Me?”

“Rather, the power that you’re saturating this house with,” Zelda said. “You’ll learn to better manage it with time.”

“They’re mortals, though,” Sabrina said. “That’s Mr. Johansen from the farm next door.”

“They’re probably worse off than we are,” Zelda commented. 

“You?”

As if on cue, Ambrose’s music started thumping again.

“He’s not up there reciting poetry, Sabrina,” she said dryly. 

Her expression changed. “Oh.”

“You will trade your raw power for experience and control,” Zelda said. “And you’re a Spellman, so you’ll always be suited for magic. But right now, you are rather… ripe.” 

“Like I stink?”

“No,” Zelda said. “Not that kind of ripe.”

“Oh,” Sabrina said again.

In fact, Zelda was sweating again and the warm baby on her lap only made her feel more trapped, hot and a little bit crazed. A shame she and Faustus were on bad terms again, a shame these babies were a wedge to permanently drive them apart. Well, there were other worms in the garden as the old saying went. 

“Do take care around people,” Zelda warned her. “Men especially.” 

“I can take care of myself, Aunt Zelda,” she said.

“You are a woman now,” Zelda said. “Things would certainly calm down if you were to be… deflowered.”

“Wow, I really don’t want to talk about that,” Sabrina said, turning to leave. 

“Not with a mortal!” Zelda called after her. “The last thing we need is to further dilute this bloodline.”

But only the baby, drowsy on warm milk, was left to hear her. 

oooo

Zelda did not think that Mary Wardwell was a witch excommunicated from another coven. Sabrina may have bought that story, but Zelda was far from born yesterday. Their numbers were small enough now that it wasn’t hard to keep track of all the witches and wizards in the state. 

In fact, there was a registry at the Academy. She didn’t relish going there, didn’t relish the chance of seeing Faustus again so soon after spiriting away Perdita, when the memory of their devotional sessions was still so recent. Still, references had to be checked, so she accompanied Sabrina to thwart suspicion, despite her niece's protests that she’d been coming alone for weeks already.

“You’re too attractive at the moment,” Zelda said disdainfully. “And the students don’t yet trust you. I’ll see you there and that’s the last we’ll discuss it.” 

Sabrina seemed to think that since she signed the Book of the Beast, Zelda was going to lighten up. But she was still sixteen, still just a girl drunk on her power. If anything, Zelda planned to hold the leash tighter. Edward had been just as powerful, just as charismatic, just as free thinking and where was he now?

Nowhere helpful.

Zelda saw Sabrina to her first class and then slipped away to the library. The librarian, Cassius, nodded at her in greeting. Zelda nodded back but did not feel compelled to explain herself. As an alumna of the Academy, she would have library privileges for life. Most families had their own library of basic spell books at home, for housework, basic education, hexes and such, but more advanced texts were safer under the roof of the Academy. Or so Zelda had believed when her brother was high priest. Now, with Faustus leaning heavily on dated, more archaic traditions and slowly seeping power away from the women - he was more transparent than he cared to believe on that front - she wasn’t so sure. 

The registry sat on a podium near one of the five corners of the room, well out of sight of the circulation desk. She pointed her finger at it and it flew open to the W section. 

Mary Wardwell was not listed.

Zelda knew she wouldn’t be. 

oooo

They held a funeral on a Friday afternoon and half the town showed up. There were so many people that they completely filled the viewing room and spilled out into the foyer, past that onto the porch and into the yard. 

Spellman Mortuary didn’t host a great deal of funerals. Mostly they prepared the bodies and transported them to the place of worship of choice in their old black hearse. Occasionally, when the gathering was to be small or the family of the deceased wasn’t particularly religious, they would ask to hold the service at the Mortuary. 

It was a good deal, actually, and they offered a discount for services with a closed casket. 

Sabrina got home from school at half three and the service began at 4:00. 

“They trailed me home,” she said. Zelda would not call Sabrina concerned, exactly, but unsettled certainly. Sabrina could handle a crowd of mortals on her own, nonviolently if she chose, but it’d be better if she didn’t have to. 

The people who crowded into the service weren’t dressed appropriately and the family of the deceased seemed increasingly agitated. 

“Sister,” Zelda murmured into Hilda’s ear. “Let’s give them some encouragement.”

So they wound through the crowd, chanting a spell to discourage the people who were drawn to Sabrina and not there to grieve. Zelda let her hand brush against shoulders and forearms, hips and biceps until one by one, people suddenly remembered something else they needed to do, something quite pressing, and they went home. 

Sabrina stood at her bedroom window and watched them all go. Salem sat with her on the windowsill, his tail flicking. 

It was exhausting. Not the nudging spell itself, but the sheer volume of people they’d had to perform it on. She and Hilda sat on the loveseat in the parlor, their feet on the wide ottoman with faded upholstery. Zelda’s cigarette burned in its holder but she barely smoked it. 

“I can fix dinner,” Sabrina offered, when she saw her aunts.

“That would be lovely, pet,” Hilda said without opening her eyes. 

“Oh, Sabrina,” Zelda said, before she disappeared into the kitchen. “Why don’t you invite your Miss Wardwell to dinner tomorrow.”

Sabrina nodded. “Okay, Aunt Zee.” 

They weren’t always so isolated, her and Hilda. They used to travel, to socialize, to have lives of their own. But when Edward rose so quickly to power with his unusual ideas, it seemed better to play the part of dutiful congregants. Devoted sisters. And then of course, it wasn’t just them, it was them and Ambrose and then, Sabrina. It wasn’t like she didn’t think about it - going abroad, the parties, the suitors, the wine and sweetbreads. 

“Maybe we should go to Europe,” Zelda said. 

“Do you remember how wretched those ocean liners were? Months on the water.” Hilda shook her head. “I couldn’t do it now.”

“We’d fly, you half-wit,” Zelda snapped. Honestly. Couldn’t Hilda even reminisce with her without complaining or worrying? 

Hilda hefted herself out the seat and turned on Zelda, crossing her arms. 

“You remember parties and suitors and freedom, but that wasn’t what it was like for me,” Hilda said accusingly. “At least here in this town, in this house, I can be myself.”

Zelda rolled her eyes. “No need for histrionics.”

From upstairs came wailing. 

“Could you-” Zelda started to ask. 

“I didn’t steal that baby,” Hilda said. “I’m going to help Sabrina.” 

And so Zelda climbed the stairs wearily and opened the door to her bedroom. She picked up Perdita and climbed onto her bed. Held the baby against her chest, rocking lightly until soon they both dozed.

oooo

Sabrina attempted a spell, something flashy out of a spell book from school and it went rather badly. It was too far above her level, but she’d hoped raw power might make up for lack of technique. By the time Mary Wardwell arrived, there was a hole in the roof and the house was absolutely teeming with misspent power. Sabrina was sulking in her room until such time Zelda saw fit to set her free. 

Hilda had opted to take the baby in the pram into the woods to get them both out of the house and Ambrose had climbed up to try to repair some of the damage. When Zelda answered the door, she was already barely holding it together, though she’d never admit to it. 

The sight of Miss Wardwell was a jolting reminder of their dinner plans, forgotten swiftly in the face of crisis. Miss Wardwell was wearing a form fitting dress in a red so deep it was nearly black. Her fingernails and lips matched and her hair was voluminous and teased to perfection. She looked more like she was arriving for a sacrifice, not dinner and a stern talk about Sabrina’s education. The whole picture she presented made Zelda start throbbing and she let out a small squeak as she worked desperately to conceal it. 

“Just little old me,” Miss Wardwell said. “Isn’t this place just a cauldron ready to boil over?”

Zelda stepped aside to let her in and brought her hand to her chest, rubbing the skin there in an effort at self soothing. 

“We’re just… having a minor situation,” Zelda said. “Come in, please.”

“Minor? It feels positively delicious,” Miss Wardwell said. “Can’t you feel it too? It’s everywhere!”

Miss Wardwell grinned and reached out to touch Zelda’s forearm gleefully, but the contact made Zelda swoon for a moment. She had to close her eyes against it and she heard herself let slip a soft groan.

“ _Oh!_ ” Miss Wardwell said. “You poor thing. Come on, we’ll get that taken care of.” 

And for some reason, Zelda let herself be led into her own parlor. She heard the door slam behind them and she sat down on the sofa. The fire had died down to embers and she turned to look at them, glowing in the hearth.

“Now,” said Miss Wardwell. “Let’s see what we can do to ease things.” 

Zelda wasn’t sure what she expected to happen next. Perhaps a spell or an incantation. A glass of water or for her to go and crack the window. Instead, Miss Wardwell sat down next to her and eased her fingers under the hem of Zelda’s dress. 

Her fingers were so cool against Zelda’s heated skin as they skimmed up her thigh.

“I-” Zelda said faintly. 

“You’ll feel like a new woman,” Miss Wardwell said. “I promise.” 

Zelda felt pressure on the inside of her knee. She was in such a tizzy, such a wretched state. She did long for relief, for just a moment’s peace. And so, she relented and spread her knees as much as the dress would allow.

“That’s a good witch,” Miss Wardwell said, and slid her fingers up, up, up until they brushed up against the hottest part of Zelda. She moved restlessly onto her back to give Miss Wardwell a better angle.

“Oh honey,” Miss Wardwell said, her voice low and breathy. “You’re absolutely soaked. How long has it been like this?”

Zelda just moaned, tried to rut against the fingers who were still fluttering like butterfly wings against her. She was desperate for pressure. 

“Since she signed the book?” Miss Wardwell asked, answering her own question. “The Dark Lord certainly has got Sabrina filled to the brim, hasn’t he? He always did like a virginal new bride. Have you talked to her about, well, about deflowering?”

Frustrated, Zelda rucked her own skirt up past her knees, past her hips as far as she could until the heavy fabric was bunched around her waist and her lacy undergarments exposed. “Please,” was all she could manage. 

“I do suppose Sabrina is just not that kind of young lady,” Miss Wardwell said, carrying on the one sided conversation. “What with your virginal sister and your firm hand, I’m not surprised about that at all.” 

Miss Wardwell looked down at Zelda and seemed to realize how disheveled she’d become in the last thirty seconds. “Aren’t you a pretty picture - why, I could just eat you up. Would you like that, Zelda?”

“Yes,” Zelda managed. She felt half crazed. She felt worse off than she did at the exact moment the spell blew up in Sabrina’s face. Something in the back of her mind suggested that perhaps there was more at work here than just Sabrina’s power, that maybe Miss Wardwell was adding her own to the mix to keep Zelda this jacked up, sweaty and writhing on the claw footed sofa in a parlor meant for, at most, tea and puzzles. A parlor that had seen more action in the last few weeks than it ever had, to her knowledge. 

The animal part of Zelda’s brain told the voice to shut up for a moment, that it didn’t matter. That they only thing that mattered was Mary Wardwell sliding gracefully off the couch and onto her knees.

Lips against the inside of her thigh and then the ruined strip of fabric between her legs. Praise Satan, finally, she thought.

She let her head fall back against the cushion. Her arm was up near her hair and she pulled it over her eyes. 

Then she felt a little spark and the underwear were gone. And it was just the hot bliss of lips against her and tongue and heat and magic. It took several moments to realize that the screaming she heard was coming from herself. 

She thought fleetingly of Faustus, of how she’d thought he was satisfying right up until this moment. How Miss Wardwell’s three slender fingers were putting his entire manhood to shame. How they made the pleasure radiate through her entire body, how she could feel herself dripping down her own thighs, onto the sofa. She’d very rarely dabbled into the fairer sex and only, usually, during parties. Orgies were not really to her taste, though certainly there was a time and a place for them. But she’d left them behind with her school days. Now she wondered what she’d been missing all these years, limiting her occasional erotic dalliances to men. 

Or was it not women in general? Was it only this woman, this Miss Wardwell who clearly had power to match anyone in the Spellman family and then some to spare? Zelda felt the great precipice rushing toward her, like she was running full speed at a cliff with no broom in hand, like she was going to fall to a certain death and she’d never wanted anything more.

She forced herself to wrench open her eyes, to look at her captor, so to speak. Miss Wardwell was watching her and Zelda could feel those devish lips that were working so industriously against her curl up into a smirk. And that was it. There was no higher to climb. The only thing left was the fall.

She felt trapped for a moment, caught in the moment of pleasure that was so strong that it was painful. Her body was wracked with it, every muscle screaming, every organ stuttering. She was a living contraction, a conduit through which power flowed. Her own, and the build up from Sabrina and whatever Miss Wardwell was pumping into her to make the agony exquisitely last. 

It lasted an eternity and also, very suddenly, it was done. As she came down, their eyes met and Zelda realized that it was like looking into the face of a mask. Though Miss Wardwell was perspiring lightly, though her hair had been tousled out of perfection, though her once perfect lipstick was smeared across her chin, the eyes were a dark and dead void. 

“Who are you?” Zelda gasped, panting, a dripping, breathless mess.

The real question hung between them in the air. _What are you?_ But it did seem impolite to ask while she was still clenching around Miss Wardwell’s curling fingers. 

“Why,” Miss Wardwell said, “I’m just like you.”

oooo

Zelda had to redress without her underpants. She had to hope that they did not turn up again in some embarrassing location for a family member to find. Though it felt like it couldn’t be, from the waist up she was untouched. All she had to do was pull her skirt down and find the shoe that had fallen off and been pushed under the sofa. There was a dark wet spot that she hid with a cushion - that could be dealt with later. Her hair in the back was a disaster but that would have to be fixed with more than just her fingers. 

When she felt as sorted as she possibly could, she looked up to find that Miss Wardwell was back to perfection. Her hair, her lips, her perfectly tailored dress. 

“Would you… that is to say, shall I...?” Zelda asked, gesturing vaguely toward Miss Wardwell’s lower half. It was not where most of Zelda’s experience was, but she was midwife and a woman. She knew how it all worked and could get the job done. It would have been rude not to offer.

“Thank you, that’s very sweet, but no, I’m fine,” Miss Wardwell said. “But how do you feel?”

In fact, Zelda felt more herself than she had in days. Miss Wardwell had done what she’d promised, she’d taken care of the problem at hand. Zelda wondered if she could also fix the roof so easily. 

“Better, thank you,” Zelda said. “A little embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” Miss Wardwell said. “Though we do have one more issue to sort out - that of Sabrina’s continued education at Baxter High. She and I discussed it and thought that half her time at the Academy of Unseen Arts and half her time at Baxter high seemed like a fair compromise.”

“Fifty-fifty,” Zelda said. “Fine with me.”

oooo

Miss Wardwell’s final kindness was not expecting the dinner she’d been promised to materialize. Zelda had shown her to the door just as Hilda and the baby were returning. Miss Wardwell peered down into the pram and said, “Ah, how nice. Your nephew Ambrose’s, I assume?” 

“Yes,” Zelda had said. “A surprise to us all.” 

“Nice to see you again, Spellmans. Zelda, do let me know if you’d like to have another discussion about Sabrina’s education. I’m always available for those kinds of meetings.”

Zelda had flushed, nodded, and watched her go.

“Wow,” Hilda said, watching her navigate the rocky lane in her teetering heels. “What a lovely teacher.” 

“Indeed, sister,” Zelda said. “A credit to her profession.”

From up the stairs, a door creaked open and footsteps heralded Sabrina’s voice.

“Can I come out yet?” she called. Zelda sighed, moved to the table by the door and picked up a cigarette out of the silver box. Clipped it into her holder and slid it onto her finger, lit it and took a drag.

“Yes,” she said. “I suppose you may.” 

“Come on, my little pumpkin,” Hilda said. “We can start on dinner. You can help me keep an eye on Perdita while your Aunt Zelda fixes her hair.” 

Hilda winked at her. 

Zelda scowled and left them to it, climbing the stairs to take a long, hot bath.


End file.
